


Kiss You (Goodbye)

by AHS



Series: Songfic Series 1 (Kiss You Goodbye) [1]
Category: Actor RPF, Queer as Folk (US) RPF
Genre: M/M, Randy pov, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-09-14
Updated: 2007-09-14
Packaged: 2017-10-13 04:36:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/132992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AHS/pseuds/AHS
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Randy's pov.  Just basically my version of their relationship over the entire run of the show.  Songfic using "Kiss You" by Iio and "Almost Lover" by A Fine Frenzy.  Part 1 of 3-part series.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Kiss You (Goodbye)

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I made this up.

~Randy’s pov~

It never occurred to me. When I signed on to do _Queer As Folk_ , it was probably the one worry I never had. Will I make enough money off this to pay my bills if it gets yanked after the pilot? Will I be stuck playing teenagers forever? Will this be edgy drama or just gay porn? I had all of those. But never, what if I fall for my costar? Who am I, Angelina Jolie? It may have been my first TV job, but I knew I was too professional, and just generally too rational, for that sort of thing. Plus, I was kind of involved with someone.

And then I actually saw my costar for the first time. The first time I met, and kissed, Gale Harold.

_I'd wake up and make love to you if I had you  
I would touch you so much, but I'm not allowed to_

Gale is beautiful. And not in a typical pretty boy actor way, all slick and full of himself. Not even in a just pretty way (like me, I suppose). There’s nothing feminine about him. His body is long and lean and strong, and when he walked into his screen test, I immediately wanted to stretch out on him like he was a bearskin rug. And his face… there’s just so much in there. I could instantly read his intelligence, his quirks, and I wanted to get to know it all.

Screen tests are odd things. We’d barely introduced ourselves, and suddenly we were acting together, and then we were kissing. I won’t say that I felt a lightning bolt the second our lips touched… and, if I did, I attributed the electricity at the time to the characters and was just relieved that it seemed Brian had been found. But I had the thought that I’d gotten pretty lucky, and that kissing this man on a regular basis would hardly be a chore.

The taking all our clothes off and simulating fucking… I wasn’t sure about. But I was curious… even anticipating.

_What I hate is to wait, but in this case I'm patient_  
_I'm discreet, I'm not weak, I just need the moment_  


I soon found out. Once Gale was cast, everything seemed to happen very quickly, and we were making a TV show. Filming the first episode tested any and all inhibitions we might have had. He was naked (for someone with a definite intrinsic shyness, Gale is comfortable in his skin and has no fear in his acting)… I was naked (except, like Gale, for the ridiculous sock precariously covering my dick)… the kissing was no holds barred, full of tongue and devouring that even the intense screen test couldn’t have prepared me for… and the sex scene itself was take after take, angle after angle, of him throwing my legs over his shoulders and rocking his body, all hot and sprayed with moisture, against mine as I cried out in pain and pleasure that I didn’t get to actually feel.

After an experience like that, you either never look the other person in the eye again, or you become best friends. Gale and I, I’m happy to say, chose the latter.

My heart, however, chose more. I fell in love with him.

I felt a little silly at first, that I fell almost as fast as Justin did for Brian, but Gale’s weirdly easy to love. As the season progressed and I got to know him more, my feelings grew stronger. But I wasn’t foolish enough to think of them adding up to anything more than a crush that would never go anywhere. Mixing work and personal life was never a good idea. And I didn’t even know for sure if he was gay. I mean, he felt pretty damn gay when his tongue was in my mouth (or, nearly, my ass). I felt like he was into me, but I also knew he was a good actor. I felt the same off camera, when he would put his arm around me, or tickle me, or kiss me on the cheek for no real reason. But I knew he was a touchy-feely kind of guy with everyone… just me by far the most.

_He wants me, he wants me not  
I want everything he's got_

Somewhere along the way, my long distance relationship finished the slow fizzle out it had been doing for months. And Gale and I started hanging out fairly often in what little spare time we had. As much as the word pained me then, we were _buddies_. Buddies and coworkers who, despite making out and humping each other weekly, never came close to having anything like that happen between them in real life. Until…

Funnily enough, the scene that started it wasn’t some hot sex scene. Nobody was naked, quite. It wasn’t even a big kiss. No tongue. No mouth to mouth. Just my lips on his neck, his jaw, his ear, his temple. My hand on his knee and arm around his shoulders. A little silk robe and a lot of silk sheet between us. Me administering these tiny kisses and warm breathy whispers to Gale’s skin as Brian tried but mostly failed to ignore Justin‘s care.

When the scene was done, he hardly looked at me. Just smiled a smile that didn’t show in his eyes and walked away. I might have been worried if something hadn’t been telling me Randy was starting to get to Gale as much as Justin was getting to Brian. I went to his dressing room.

“Gale?” I knocked once, but his door wasn’t quite closed, so I pushed it open a bit and peered in. He’d changed into jeans and a T-shirt and was sitting on his couch, leaned forward, head in his hands. Looked a little confused, a little sad. I stepped inside, shut the door, and sat beside him, tentatively wrapping my arm around his back. “What’s going on?”

_If I leaned over and tried to kiss you  
Would I be wrong, after so long to kiss you_

Gale lifted his head slightly, turning into me, resting on my shoulder, his face in the terrycloth of my robe. I rubbed his back, the muscles tense, just thinking he needed comforting over something, and trying not to get too giddy and goosebumpy over the way his breaths were heating my flesh.

But then they were no longer breaths. They were almost imperceptible brushes of lips. He was placing the smallest kisses upon my neck… my jaw… my ear… my temple. It was so sweet and unexpected and exquisite, I was just trying not to die. I don’t know how I managed to speak.

“W-what are you doing?”

Thank God he didn’t stop. Just mumbled bits of Justin’s dialogue back at me. Something about killing me with kindness, to which I asked him what goal he was trying to achieve.

That’s when Gale Harold looked me in the eyes, holding my face in one hand and stroking the back of my neck with the other, and truly kissed me for the first time.

It was soft but sure and deliciously flavored with intent. My hand wove into and played in his dark hair, gripping, as our lips brushed and tumbled over each other for seconds that felt like hours and not nearly long enough. But maybe he got freaked out by how easily I opened my mouth for him outside of a scene, or more likely by his own hand sliding up my thigh under the robe, because all too soon he stopped. And, again, I tried very hard not to die.

I don’t think I’d ever seen Gale look shocked until that moment. He pulled back, stood up, and kept throwing out utterances of “Sorry” every time I said his name or tried to talk about it. He put on his shoes and grabbed his keys, said he had to go, and then he was gone.

_Would you pretend, we're only friends, if I kissed you_

Gale pretended it never happened after that, and I let him. Because at least that denial meant preserving what we had before… the laughing, talking, hugs and easy touches… easily given, if not easy to endure. Preserving our friendship and how well we worked together. He wasn’t ready for more, and I had too much pride to try and convince him he was, so basically I would just have to deal.

That lasted for the handful of weeks it took us to wrap up the season. But the final episode was filled with challenges tougher than sex scenes to play… actual romance. The prom dance, the kisses, the way he was looking at me… I was Justin and he was Brian, but I think, in certain moments, there was an underlying thread of, _This could almost be us._ A thread that cut a little, considering the tragic ending.

I’m pretty sure he didn’t know I was there when he shot his last scene. I was done for the day, done for the season, but I slipped in just to watch him. I knew what Gale could do with facial expression, more than anyone I’ve ever worked with, but I felt gut-punched beyond what I was ready for. The tears spilling down his cheeks somehow made their way onto mine. He looked so sad and lost and broken on that chair, I just wanted to hold him. Instead, I left quickly the second the director called, “Cut.”

_At least I can dream of you in a scene, when I'd kiss you_

The next night, the night before I left Toronto for the hiatus, Gale showed up at my apartment with a six-pack of beer for a “not really goodbye” goodbye. We hadn’t hung out at his place or mine alone (just a couple of poker nights with some of the other cast) since the never mentioned day in his dressing room. But we had spent nearly a year being too bared to each other to cover up with awkwardness at this point, so we didn’t.

For hours, we talked about my plans, his plans, and relived funny stories about our fellow actors, all the while doing our best to eat whatever food I had left over. Somewhere amidst the anecdotes, I guess I sensed the night winding down, and I got serious.

“I’ll miss you.”

I thought he’d brush it off, say that we’d be back here for season two in no time and I better enjoy my vacation while I had it. But instead…

“I’ll miss _you_ , a lot.” He smiled and added, “I can’t imagine what this place would have been like if I hadn’t found you here.”

His words rang familiar in the back of my mind, but I was too busy welling up with tears at the beauty of them to try and figure it out. One must have escaped, because he scooted closer to me and his thumb grazed my cheek.

“Now, don’t do that, Rand. I meant what I said, but I stole that line. It was BJ to Hawkeye in the final episode of MASH.”

“Nice,” I laughed, still watery. “They’d just made it through a war. What are you saying about us? Or, Toronto?”

“Just what I said. I’m really glad I found you.”

Before I could return the sentiment, Gale’s arm cradled the base of my neck and pulled me into a hug. I closed my eyes, let myself melt against him, and we sat in the middle of my floor, holding on.

_On one hand, we are friends, but still my mind wanders  
Through side streets and alleys, I just keep growing fonder_

We pulled away too slowly, faces much too close together… lips not quite accidentally dragging over lips… giving in and fusing… opening in sync, tongues sliding and tasting beer and months of something held back. The first kiss I had remembered, replayed so many times it was almost like a dream, but this was just… so fucking real.

When I felt him start to retreat, I know I sucked the fullness of his bottom lip into my mouth a little desperately. He let me, then I let him go, and Gale sank his forehead against mine.

“You’re not going to apologize, are you?” I asked, but I knew this time he wouldn’t.

“No. I’m not sorry.”

“Good. Does that mean you won’t run away either?”

“I’m not running. But… I need to go.”

The regret in his voice made it okay. He didn’t _want_ to go any more than I wanted him to. He knew something more would happen between us if he stayed, and I loved that. He thought it was right, or thought it was best for it not to happen, and I didn’t like that… I disagreed… but I accepted it.

Just before he walked out the door, he told me the war wasn’t over and neither were we.

*****

_To stop me is not easy, can't stop a lion from hunting_

It wasn’t until months after two very unscripted, very passionate kisses that I got the (rather difficult to believe) news that Gale was straight.

What… the… _fuck_.

How wrong is that? You kiss a guy, more importantly he kisses you back, and then he tells you he’s straight (more importantly, _not_ gay). And not even to your face. Tells you at the same time he tells the rest of the world, via fucking interview.

So, what did that mean? Had he just been humoring me when he kissed me? Because he’d deduced my crush and didn’t want to hurt my pathetic little queer feelings? Or was he lying about who he was in the interview? I didn’t think either scenario sounded like Gale. The Gale I knew was my friend (if nothing else). Respected me, respected himself. Was private but completely honest. Like a raw nerve kept protected under an extra layer of skin.

I spent pretty much the first half of second season pissed at him. Partly because of the interview and partly because he never called me over hiatus. (Not that I called him either, but… whatever.) And when I’m mad, I’m mad, and that means not speaking to you outside of what’s required of me. So I didn’t give him a chance to explain anything.

Of course, our characters were getting closer than ever during this time. But, instead of the acting being uncomfortable, it was nice having a context in which we could experience everything we weren’t allowing ourselves… the friendship and the more.

_I'm focused, I won't miss, there's no control of some things_

Eventually, I just kind of thawed out. I was just hurt, and he was there all the time, being himself, and I loved him and I couldn’t fight that. When he sensed that he could talk to me again, he asked me to go for a drink with him after work.

Gale offered me four simple truths… One, yes, he was straight. Two, despite that, what happened between us was absolutely real. Three, he was sorry for the way I found out. And, four, he missed me.

I couldn’t say I understood. But I missed him, too. I said, “Okay.” And it was.

It was really okay. We became even closer friends than we had been before. We took turns whose apartment we’d hang out at on Friday nights. Listening to music, smoking his stash, and talking about all kinds of shit. After he bought me one of those home karaoke machines for my birthday, he’d sometimes humor me by listening to me sing. But the best was when I actually got him drunk enough to belt out a hysterically Gale version of “I Love Rock and Roll.”

There were moments that veered into more than friendly, sometimes… soft collisions of hands, and hazel gazes (Gale hazes) held too long by blue… but that was bound to be. They were only moments.

_He wants me, he wants me not  
I want everything he's got_

And it was business as usual at work, at least until close to the end of the season. Specifically, the episode where Brian knows Justin is cheating on him and, rather than confront Justin with words, Brian confronts Justin with this kiss… that’s just so raw and angry and pleading and painful and sad and _hot_. The kiss seemed to last forever, and we had to do it more than once, camera circling Gale and me. The scene was so _charged_ , as Brian not only showed Justin what he would be giving up, but poured out silently through his eyes and mouth what he would never say… _Can’t you see? Can’t you feel how much I fucking love you?_ At least, that’s what I got from the way Gale played it.  


He played it so well that I almost thought… he was saying it to me, too. Which made being left on the cold floor hurt in a way it shouldn’t. Not for Randy.

Gale picked me up, though. And hugged me. And the director applauded us. Told us how amazing we were together… _*Sigh*…_ I know.

I was a little surprised when Gale invited me over at the end of the day, because it wasn’t Friday. But I said yes. And though I might not have realized just what I was saying yes to at the time, I did the second we stepped into his apartment. I could feel it before it happened. Prickles up my spine, warm flush of my skin, as I heard the click of the lock and his excited breath. There was no pretense.

He started kissing me and didn‘t stop.

Kissing, kissing, kissing… beautiful lips… wet and hot and berry ripe… a little bruised from the scene, but not shying… seeking bruises we could own… teeth scraping with color… hands reaching, finding, holding on… stumbling back, back… down hallways in search of a bed… falling… bodies crushing… crushing each other with want and need… crushing my crush… my crush, exorcised… replaced with something so much more… more than daydreams, more than scenes… more than an interview, more than a word… something shared, something not just me… and I was so hard so fast… before we even made it to the bedroom… and he was, too… not for the first time, but for the first time I knew he would let me do something about it… and I did… and then he… and we… condom, fuck… _finally_ we… oh my God…

When Gale entered me, _Christ_ … I might not have felt like a virgin again, but, like the first day I met him, I felt my life change. And when he stilled inside me and whispered that he was sorry, for that moment I thought I felt it end. But he saw me swallow my disappointment and he kissed my throat in reassurance. Licked over my Adam’s apple. Gave me a new truth.

“I’m sorry we never did this before.”

Fucked me and loved me a forever that I knew couldn’t last.

_If I leaned over and tried to kiss you  
Would I be wrong, after so long to kiss you_

“I don’t know what to do now, Rand,” he admitted softly around 2 a.m.

“That’s okay,” I mumbled into his chest… rise and fall… rise and fall. “I don’t, either.”

“I don’t know what I can offer you beyond tonight.”

“Would it be so impossible… to try for more?” Gathered my courage, raised my head to look at him. “I mean, it’s already there. It’s _here_.” My fingertips zeroed in on his heart and absorbed the beat. “We’ve just got to… take it.”

He sighed and it hurt him even more than it did me. “I don’t know if I can.”

My hopes froze as he kept the rest of me warm. I wanted to tell him yes, he could, but that might have been a lie. I wanted to tell him I loved him, but that much truth would have just made things worse. “Do you want me to go?”

“No,” he said, hooking his leg over mine, his arms squeezing me to him. “That’s all I do know for sure.”

And that was the end of our something that never really got to begin. Gale was… struggling. Whether it was his sexual identity or his feelings for me, or fears about family reaction or his career that was fucking him up, the damage was the same. We weren’t going to be together.

Life went on, somehow. More miraculously, somehow we still stayed friends. It was different. We were closer and farther apart than we’d ever been. A quiet goodbye at the studio, a kiss on the top of my head, and another hiatus soon brought physical separation. We did manage to call each other this time. But I know that I shut myself down a little. I had to, so as not to start talking about things we couldn’t talk about. To be able to enjoy New York the way I deserved to, and even, as it turned out, to do something I didn’t think was possible.

To meet someone new.

*****

Simon came along at a time when I definitely wasn’t looking for love. I’d already found love and I couldn’t have it. But I missed having a boyfriend, having a real relationship.

I met Simon and, while there was nothing as instant and overpowering as when I met Gale, I was quite taken with him. I enjoyed spending time with him. He was intelligent, charming, witty, even more sarcastic than I am, and we seemed to want the same things. He wasn’t as beautiful as Gale, but I’d never known anyone who was. (Stop comparing them, I often had to remind myself.) I was attracted to Simon… something that really hadn‘t happened often in recent memory… and he was one hundred percent proudly gay. So, when he made a move, I had a choice to continue hoping for the hopeless or lift myself out of the limbo I’d been in for two years. I chose door #2.

Gale and I spoke on the phone the week before shooting started up again. I didn’t know how to tell him about Simon… didn’t know if he’d care or not… so I just told him I had a surprise. He told me it must be good because I sounded happy. I told him I was.

_Would you pretend, we're only friends, if I kissed you_

Gale ending up finding out about Simon as he was sneaking up on me to greet me, first day back at the studio. I was telling Peter all about New York, my latest play, and my new man, and I even had a picture of the two of us to show. Gale reached to grab me by the waist, but his hands dropped from me as if burned when he saw the photo. After a minute, he smiled, kissed me on the cheek, and said, “Now I know why you’re so happy.” I nodded, unsure why I felt cruel for doing so. He said, “Good. Someone should… do that for you.”

As I watched him walk away, I decided maybe he did care after all.

Aside from one time when we were discussing a scene we were about to shoot where Brian refers to Justin’s new boyfriend, and instead of “Ethan,” or even “Ian,” Gale slipped and said, “Simon”… we both seemed to be okay.

The episode where Brian and Justin get back together was the first time I ever had to tell Gale not to hold back. He had never shied from a love scene, always giving himself totally over to it and me, regardless of what was going on between us in our real life. That was what we needed, because the reunion had to be hot and truly momentous. But, even though he was touching me in all the right places to the camera’s eye, something wasn’t connecting. And his tongue was practically hiding from me. It was like he needed my permission, now that I was in a relationship, to be the way we’d always been naturally. Once I gave, he gave.

And the scene was fucking hot.

That year and the next, my feelings for Gale lay mostly dormant. The burn, the electricity in the air between us dulled to a warm resonance. I loved him; I always would. But I had Simon, and I loved him, too… just differently. Functionally.

I never told Simon what happened between Gale and me, and if he suspected, he never said anything. They were the two most important people in my life, and I wanted them to like each other. Not that they were around each other much, Simon living in New York, but when they met I got a definite vibe of forced friendliness over mutual distaste. However, both claimed to think the other “great,” so I chose not to question further.

_At least I can dream of you in a scene, when I'd kiss you_

Fourth season came with a lot of frustrations. I still loved working with Gale… there was nothing like it for me… but I was feeling somewhat creatively tied down by the show. The stupid pink-shirted vigilante shit they were having me play didn’t help, and neither did Simon’s opinion that I was too good for the show. Maybe he was mostly kidding when he said I should quit, but I knew not entirely. I wished sometimes that he would support me a little less strongly.

Gale just told me I was still luckier than 99.9% of actors out there and gave my shoulder a friendly squeeze. Told me to “buck up,” I believe he said, which made me laugh.

Brian’s cancer storyline was a turn for the better, even if it wasn’t “my” story. I was proud to see what Gale would put into it that wasn’t on the page. I was excited about the emotional scenes we would have, angry (a chance for Justin to yell at Brian had me giddy) and sweet and everything in between.

I was excited but not prepared. The actor was. But not the man who had loved Gale Harold, on whatever level, for years.

Something about that scene where Justin undresses a tired Brian and puts him to bed… knowing Brian has cancer but letting him hold onto the safety of his illusion of Justin’s ignorance… laying atop his lover’s body, as if to be his blanket, to comfort him and shield him from anything that would try to hurt him, even disease… clinging to him, kissing his chest, feeling him breathe, and blinking back tears so Brian wouldn’t know he was scared, or why… Yeah, it got to me. Quiet scene, too easy to think. Holding Gale and being forced to consider his mortality. The few tears that escaped my eyes were real.

Afterwards, I got a little weird on him. Made him promise to go to the doctor and get a complete physical. Get checked for everything they could think of. He laughed, but when he saw how serious I was, he stopped. I knew he hated doctors, but, despite the _You’re losing it, Rand_ look he gave me, he actually did it. The next week he came in, carrying blood test results and I don’t know what else, declaring himself to be a perfect physical specimen (I couldn’t disagree) and 100% healthy (“Except for a slight tummy ache, but I put the lime in the coconut and drank ’em both up, and now I’m feeling better”… _Goofball_ ). Relief flooded me, I hugged him, and kissed him so quickly on the lips I didn’t even have time to wonder if it was appropriate.

I told myself it was normal concern for a friend, but feelings that had been sleeping had been lightly shaken… and were starting to wake.

*****

__

_Goodbye, my almost lover_  
_Goodbye, my hopeless dream_  
_I'm trying not to think about you_  
_Can't you just let me be?_

It was hard to believe the show was coming to an end. Five years, almost over. Maybe it could have been six, but no, I needed to stop (while I had a little of my twenties left). Still, my emotions were mixed… sadness tempered by a joyous _freedom_ … kind of like graduating, I guess. As energetic as I am by nature, I was fucking tired. I was fond of Toronto, but I missed New York. And I honestly couldn’t wait to get away from Justin, get back to the theatre and be a multitude of characters again. But saying goodbye to everyone was going to be difficult. One, in particular, I couldn’t even let myself think about.

Five years. That’s how long it took Brian to tell Justin he loved him. And that meant it took that long for me to hear those words spoken by Gale. That was something we had never said. Not as friends, or as lovers, if we’d even earned the right to be called that in our one night, amazing as it was. He was always more my almost lover. He was my almost everything.

I liked the way the words sounded wrapped in Gale’s voice… a little too much. I even liked Justin for that moment because he let me live vicariously through him, clutch Gale, all dirty and disheveled, grin in disbelief yet belief, and celebrate a universe in which almost got to become _all_.

And, just for the wash of enjoyment that came with that moment, I felt so guilty.

Gale started to say something to me before he left… maybe wanted to get a drink with me, maybe it was something else… but he didn’t. A bombing is complicated to film, and Kelly’s a perfectionist, so it had been one of the longest days in recorded history. Gale had to be as exhausted as I was and just wanted to go home.

I went home and called Simon.

__

_So long, my luckless romance_  
_My back is turned on you_  
_Should've known you'd bring me heartache_  
_Almost lovers always do_

A few more weeks and it all came down to me and Gale. The last actors filming the last scenes. Everyone else had finished, said their goodbyes, gone. The two of us had started it all, and now we would be the ones to end it. I believe Dan and Ron used the phrase “full circle.”

I can’t talk about the last love scene, I just… _too much_. Giant cliff we hurled ourselves over, screaming in tandem. But the wet trail down Justin’s cheek at the end wasn’t sweat and it wasn’t courtesy of a damn tearstick. It was courtesy of Gale’s face. Broke me.

I don’t think the fact that Justin and I were both headed for New York was lost on Gale, and certainly not on me. At least Brian was only in Pittsburgh. Gale was going to be on the other side of the fucking country.

Kiss goodbye… I waited to close my eyes. I saw his face right before his mouth claimed mine. Saw the pain that seized his features. Knew it wasn’t only Brian. Shivered at the desperation with which he sucked my lips between his. I understood that feeling well, and felt it still. This could be the last time we ever got to…

I held his face in my hands and tried to hold the moment safe, even as the director shouted, “Cut!” and a triumphant but sad, “That’s it, people.”

We let go slowly and didn’t stop staring at each other until Dan and Ron and crew members started coming out of the woodwork to clap us on the back. Congratulate us on how good the scene was, on our completion of five years and 82 episodes, or because we had made them cry… Join the club. The next thing we knew, we were making farewell speeches to a small crowd and trying not to fall apart.

__

_We walked along a crowded street_  
_You took my hand and danced with me_  
_And when you left, you kissed my lips_  
_You told me you would never, never forget_  
_these images_

“You fucker. You weren’t supposed to cry. You made me do it, too,” I complained to Gale as we walked together… slowly… last time to the parking lot.

He seemed to throw off his pensive mood for a moment of silliness, grabbing me by the hand and spinning me around, letting us laugh again. But his words, playfully said, were seriously meant. “I didn’t realize I had that kind of power over you, Rand.”

I let my bag drop as we reached my car. “Yes, you did.”

“Yeah, well… get ready again, then.” He indicated his eyes, still wet with unshed tears, and cleared his throat. “When do you leave?”

“Tomorrow morning.”

“Fuck. Not wasting any time, are you?”

“Nope. What about you?”

“A few days. I’m not in a big rush to get out of Toronto. I think I might even keep a place out here if I can.”

“You should. I’ll visit you here, ‘cause you know I’m not going near L.A. if I can help it.” I giggled but Gale just sobered further.

_Well, I'd never want to see you unhappy  
I thought you'd want the same for me_

“I don’t want you to visit me.”

I swallowed the lump that was my heart in my throat, nodding dumbly. “Fine, that’s fine. It was just… something to say.” I moved to open the car door but Gale’s hand stopped me.

“I don’t want you to visit, Rand, because you shouldn‘t have to… You should be with me.”

“What?”

“I don’t think I can let you go, okay?” He looked unsteady on his feet. “I want you to be _with_ me… like we should have been before.”

“Gale…” I wasn’t surprised by my instant impulse to say _yes, I’m yours_ , or my anger at a universe that would fuck up our timing so badly. But I was surprised by how calm I was, and that I had no anger at him for doing this now. “I’m gonna miss you, too. More than I’ve ever missed anybody in my life. I… _I can’t imagine what this place would have been like if I hadn’t found you here._ ”

One corner of his mouth lifted in acknowledgment of my giving the MASH quote back to him, but his eyes turned a sad umber as I went on.

“But…”

“But I missed my chance, right?”

__

_Goodbye, my almost lover_  
_Goodbye, my hopeless dream_  
_I'm trying not to think about you_  
_Can't you just let me be?_

“Even if you’re ready for this, even if I thought it could work… I’m committed to Simon. You know that.”

“Yeah, I do. I do, believe me. But… you can’t blame a guy for trying.” He forced a grin and I hated myself.

“No, I can’t.” I ran my fingers along the cold of the car door handle, still not ready to go. “I guess I should…"

“Yeah, me too. I guess the war’s over, huh?”

“Yeah. But we… never will be.”

I hugged him so hard, I think I was trying to leave the indentation of my body on his skin. He hugged back, picked me up a little, kissed the side of my face. Then he pressed his lips to mine softly, purely, just holding there.

“I won’t forget. I’ll never shake you.”

And then we weren’t touching anymore, and I felt my life change again.

“Tell Simon, uh… congratulations.”

“Right. You tell the same to the ladies of Los Angeles,” I tried to say flippantly but only hated myself more.

“Right.”

I forced myself to turn, fumbling with my key. I could just see Gale’s outline in the window.

“I love you, Rand.”

I supported myself against the door, touching his reflection.

“I love you, Gale.”

__

_So long, my luckless romance_  
_My back is turned on you_  
_Should've known you'd bring me heartache_  
_Almost lovers always do_

_  
_

_(Lyrics: Kiss You, iio; Almost Lover, A Fine Frenzy)  
_

**Author's Note:**

> For the record, "I won't forget. I'll never shake you," is also BJ/Hawkeye in the M*A*S*H finale :)


End file.
